Dark Tower: Coda Redux
by Nashdude
Summary: Written as an additional chapter to Dark Tower VII, after Coda, to set at ease the minds of those DT fans who were dissatisfied at sai King's final word on Roland. Long days and pleasant nights! Edited 1.11.06


**DISCLAIMER: The following is a short story based on the ending of Dark Tower VII. It contains SPOILERS and should only be read after reading the entire series. The Dark Tower and all its characters and themes are the property of Stephen King. I'm only borrowing those things to pay tribute to his creation.**

The names of the fallen Roland spoke with authority. Each word bit into his soul, for each name was a soul sacrificed that he might be here, at the foot of the Dark Tower. His long quest, to seek out the Dark Tower, had reached its end. Finally—_finally_—he could lay down the burden of the gun. But one thing remained.

"Eddie?"

No other words were necessary. Old long, tall and ugly had spoken of his dreams often enough to know what came next. Eddie's hand went to his gunbelt, slung low and holding Roland's other sandlewood grip big iron. His hand touched the brass horn that hung there, and he hesitated. For many months he'd carried the horn, ever since Lud. Ever since their ka-tet had been complete. And here they stood, many miles and many wheels from where they had become one from many, all five of them... still alive. Susannah sat between him and Roland, her battery operated golf-cart humming almost silently. Jake stood on Roland's left, his bag slung over one shoulder carrying the remaining Orizas. As always, Oy stood close at heel.

All felt the song of Can'Ka No Rey as it wove and slinked through their very bones. All felt the song of Gan as well, the harmony of White blending perfectly with the melody of the crimson field. All stood captivated by the pull of the Tower, wanting to rush forward and claim the prize as their very own.

All waited on Eddie to blow a horn that hadn't sounded since Cuthbert, his forerunner, last put it to his lips on the slopes of Jericho Hill.

But he couldn't do it. It didn't feel _right_.

"This was your quest, Roland. We may be ka-tet... we may be _family_... but you are the one true heir to the line of Eld. It's your show, buddy-ro." And without further preamble, Eddie lifted the horn from his belt and passed it to its rightful owner.

Roland took up the horn with reverence. He'd long ago stopped questioning Eddie's sense of "rightness". As strong as Jake was in the touch, Eddie was stronger in his ability to—how did Ted put it as they left for Fedic?— "feel the path of the Beam."

"Do you say so?" The gunslinger knew the answer Eddie would give—the only answer he _could_ give—but he asked anyway. That's the way of family, after all.

"You can set your watch and warrant on it," Eddie said, grinning at his use of Roland's trademark saying.

"Bet my bottom dollar," Roland replied in kind.

"If you doan _blow_ that damn horn and right quick, I'm goan _run_ yo honky mahfah ass over and bus' into dat there Tower mah se'f, sho!" Susannah said, allowing Detta Walker to make one final appearance on Mid-World side.

"Yeah, let's make like a cow patty and hit the dusty trail," Jake said, not one to be left out.

"Usty! Ail! Olan!" Oy barked.

They all laughed. It felt good to laugh. There had been very little of it since Devar-Toi, when Eddie had almost been killed by a bullet fired by the very ugly—and now very dead—Pimli Prentiss. But as it had since he'd received it, the horn seemed to speak to Eddie. Not by words or even images, but just by impulsive action, almost as if the horn could see a few seconds into the future. Eddie had pulled his iron and fired before he even knew where he was aiming. By the time his eyes focused on Prentiss, the hand that had been holding the Colt Peacemaker went limp and lifeless.

On more than one occasion, Eddie had pulled Roland's bacon out of the fire. And Susannah's. And Oy's. He'd even shouted a warning across the infinite worlds of the Beam that very likely saved Jake's life as he was about to be crushed by the van that had been destined to crush Stephen King. He may very well have been ka-mai, ka's fool, at one point, but somehow the horn had made him ka's master.

And now it rested in Roland's diminished right hand, awaiting its final duty.

Roland Deschain of Gilead, son of Stephen, the Line of Eld, dinh of the Ka-tet of Nineteen, once the last gunslinger, took a long pull of the Can'Ka No Rey twilight air and blew. The resulting blast shook the very ground they stood on, for the note from the horn called forth the song of the roses, blending together to announce to the universe that the Line of Eld had been victorious. As the blast echoed into eternity, the door to the Dark Tower swung open... and Roland went to his knees.

Memories bombarded him, images of a past that had only been revealed to him just now. It was like when his mind was splintered by the two distinct realities of Jake being dead under the mountain and Jake being alive in New York, only multiplied. He thought he felt the hands of his friends reaching out to him in concern, but he couldn't be sure.

So many pasts. So many lives. He could remember!

No wonder he'd had these strange feelings of deja vu all these years, ever since he'd set out across the desert in pursuit of the man in black. He'd lived—and relived—every moment of it!

Nineteen times, say thankya.

Yes, some things were different. Eddie had died in Devar-Toi the last time, at the hands of Pimli Prentiss. Before that, Jack Andolini did honors. Susannah? Jake? Oy? All dead, eighteen times over. Sometimes their deaths were the same from one life to the next. Sometimes they were different. And yet, here they were with him, now, at the foot of the Tower. What had changed to bring this about?

As the question formed in his mind, the answer sprang into being along side. The horn. He didn't have it last time, or any other time before. He could remember as if it were yesterday, stooping on the slopes of Jericho Hill to pick up the horn where it had fallen from Cuthbert's dying grasp. He'd dusted it off with care, and later put a new polish on it—tribute to his fallen friend.

He had the horn now, had never been without it in all the many months since drawing his ka-tet on the beaches of the Western Sea. And yet these new memories told him that this is the first time he'd ever reached the Dark Tower with the horn in hand. All other times, the mere three seconds it had taken to retrieve the horn had been too long, too hard. All other times, he refused to allow himself to feel the hurt, the weakness, of mourning for a fallen comrade.

How different he was now.

Though still seen as "old long, tall and ugly" by his ka-tet, that name had taken on a strangely endearing quality, for his otherworldly friends were no stranger to his tears. Granted, few and far between have been the times that they'd fallen, but they _had_ fallen, and he'd never made excuse for them. Since taking up the Horn of Eld, his tears had become a badge of great honor, a reminder that though the gunslinger still dealt death, still strove through hellfire and brimstone on his quest for the Tower, a heart brimming with love beat for his tet... his family.

It was that family that helped him to his feet, now mere yards from the end of his quest.

Together, hand in bloodied hand, the ka-tet stumbled forward, pausing only long enough to place Aunt Talitha's cross on the step that had the inscription, "Unfound." Not surprisingly, the hieroglyphs shifted, muddled together until the word "Found" reemerged.

Eddie wordlessly scooped up his wife in his arms, and the tet mounted the stairs leading to the door. But before they could enter, Roland stopped them one last time. With agonizing slowness, his hand went to his belt and pulled his gun, his big iron. He held it before him, scrutinizing it, studying it though he knew every etching by heart. Then, with a wash of great release over his soul, he laid the sandlewood grip pistol just outside the doorjamb. When he stood, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and even Oy could see the true power of the Dark Tower. Roland of Gilead, of the Line of Eld, was a gunslinger no more.

Jake followed his dinh's example almost immediately, laying his bag of Orizas and gunna next to the pistol, careful that not even the shadow of its leather strap darken the doorjamb. Susannah also followed suit, tossing aside her machine pistol and the remaining clips of ammo cannibalized from Devar-Toi.

Finally, Eddie pulled his iron, the mate for Roland's own gun. He paused a moment of dramatic flair, then shrugged and tossed the iron onto the pile of gunna, and guns, that had been placed just outside the Tower door.

"Monkey see, monkey do, right?" he said with a grin.

Roland replied with a beaming smile, a Beaming smile, which he shared with his ka-tet. Then finally, he nodded, and the tet stepped through the door.

As before, a spiral staircase led up the Tower wall, and each nineteenth step opened onto a different landing, complete with a window and faces carved into the living stone walls. And as before, each room held a single scene from Roland's past. Only instead of filling the room, each memory only used a portion of the room, leaving space enough for four other memories, each from a similar period in its owner's life—all were infants, once upon a when—and each with its own distinctive scent. Oddly, the different odors did not mix and muddle with each other. Each had a flavor all its own, and easily recognizable from its counterparts.

Roland glanced at the first room in passing, but continued on without pause. But he didn't want to dwell on these memories, not again, never in life. Once was enough. Nineteen times was too much.

At one point, Eddie urged a stop, when one of the rooms held a doll his sister Selina had owned. It was battered and bruised, as it had appeared the day it had witnessed Selina's death.

"It's a trap," Roland said. "All these rooms are. It's an anchor to the past, a weight that keeps us from moving on."

"But ain't that what we're here to fix? How the world as moved on?"

Roland sighed. "Once I thought so, but no more. The world _must_ move on, else you relive the past time and again, delah."

"But what about the world—_all_ worlds—falling into ruin? How are we supposed to save them if we can't stop them from moving on?"

"We don't," Jake said, speaking what had been in his heart since the entering the field of roses. "The Beam takes care of that. And we took care of the Beam. The Tower isn't about all that. I mean, look at the rooms we passed. Each one shows a scene from our lives that is just a little newer than the last one, steadily bringing us up to the present. The Tower isn't about the world, or all worlds, even though all worlds connect to it. The Tower is about one life. Mine. And yours. And Susannah's and Oy's. And Roland's."

Though he spoke with authority, Jake passed a glance at Roland, who nodded with beaming pride. "You say true," he said. Jake didn't flush, as he might have just a few months ago at such praise from this man, but he was pleased all the same.

The ka-tet continued onward, upward in the Tower of their individual lives. As they mounted each new set of nineteen steps, they spared the merest glimpse of their past, no more than a second before moving on. Years and wheels soared past as they ambled onward, nearer and nearer the room at the top, until finally, a door appeared at the end of the steps.

Roland stopped dead in his tracks. The door's inscription said The Clearing.

"It said 'Roland' every time before," he breathed, unsure what to make of the newest change.

"Every time before?" Eddie asked. "What's that supposed to mean? Like one of your deja vu things, or one of those Dark Tower dreams you're always having?"

"No. I've been here before. More than once, say true. And every time before, the door had said 'Roland' and opened to a point in the desert just before the way station where I first met Jake."

"The one with the water pump? The one with Walter?" Jake asked, the color bleeding from his face. The question he meant to ask—"The place I showed up when I died the first time, before the mountain where I died again?"—he never voiced. Roland heard it in his heart all the same, for he measured his time with Jake in much the same manner.

"The very one. When I reenter the desert from the Tower, I forget all, and find myself reliving my quest again. This last time was different. The Tower—or the Beam or the roses, I cannot say which—gave my horn back to me. Instead of leaving the horn forsaken on the slopes of Jericho Hill, this time I reclaimed it. Since then, all has been different.

"Eddie. Last time, you died in Devar-Toi. Jake, you were killed saving sai King from being hit by the man in the bucka. Oy died saving me from Mordred. And Susannah, you had Patrick draw the Unfound Door for you, which took you back to New York, to another Eddie and Jake.

Always before, circumstances would leave me to climb the Tower alone, and the door at the top, _this_ door, would be marked 'Roland'."

"So you've made it," Jake said, boiling Roland's explanation down to its bare essence. "You've reached the end of your quest. All you have to do is open the door."

"So why does it say 'The Clearing'?" Susannah asked with no small amount of dread in her voice. But before they could ponder this, the door swung open.

The door did open to an outdoors scene, in fact, but not the desert. The ka-tet found themselves staring at a verdant green meadow. A gentle breeze blew from the door, carrying on it the scent of honeysuckle. It also carried a sweet voice, singing a song that Susannah recognized as an old Janice Joplin hit called "Careless Love". Roland recognized it for a totally different reason.

Careless Love was the song of his very heart, now being sung by a voice that Roland had dreamed of every night of his long quest, often causing him to wake to the sound of his own crying and agonizing screams.

"Susan," he whispered with absolute certainty.

There was such a note of hope in his voice, a note of youthful exuberance, that Eddie shot a look at old long tall and ugly. Susannah and Jake followed suit, and found that "long tall and ugly" he was no more.

Roland was bathed in the sunlight that had come streaming through the door, and it seemed to literally be stripping the years from him. More effective than any sandblaster, the light scoured away the creases of age, the lines of worry and grief, the solid stone that seemingly made up the gunslinger's heart. Before their eyes, they saw Roland reduced to a fifteen year old boy, a young man with hopes and dreams that no longer involved sandlewood gripped iron.

The gunslinger that was finally turned to his friends, studying their faces individually, seeing them very well, if it do ya. "Jake was right. The Dark Tower is just about one life. Mine has been spent trying to fix the world, fix all worlds. In doing so, I took many lives by my own hand."

"Curing the disease by killing the patient," Eddie said.

"You say very true," Roland said. "But my most grievous sacrifice was Susan. I had the chance to love her, and didn't. In the end, she became just one more offering to the Tower."

"Uh-uh, sugar," Susannah said, a tear filling her eye. "Your greatest sacrifice was your own life. As much a sacrifice she may have been, it was nothing compared to the grief that you've felt every day since. I think this door is the Tower's way of saying thankya."

Roland shot a hopeful glace over his shoulder at the meadow, and his heart leapt as he caught sight of a yellow sundress, fluttering in the breeze. By God and the Man-Jesus...

"Will'ee come with me?" he asked, daring not to take his eye off the flutter of yellow.

"I don't think we can," Eddie said. "The Tower won't let us. I think this is your stop, and your stop alone."

Roland nodded slowly, expecting that answer. With a pain that was almost physical, he tore his gaze from the yellow sundress and looked once more at his ka-tet. "We are family, you and I. Ka may have brought us together, but we are bound by a force stronger than ka. Stronger than even the Tower, I think.

"Eddie. I drew you to this world, likely against your will, and yet you followed me willingly on an impossible quest, a quest I could never have finished without you. You are my true brother. You have a cheer about you that even your own death could never erase. No greater pain do I feel when I think of that beast that held you captive once. Hero-Inn?"

"Heroine," Eddie corrected, tears flowing freely.

"Just so. It is no longer your master. You are no longer ka-mai because of it. You are free, and I say thankya. I love you.

"Susannah. You came to this world as two, and like our ka-tet, you have become one, and you are stronger for it. Odetta lives in awe of the world she sees, while Detta stands defiantly against it, giving no quarter. You are my sister. I love you."

"Oh hesh yo se'f," Susannah said brokenly, wrapping her arms around Roland's neck and planting a tender, trembling kiss on his cheek.

Roland looked long at her, then took a deep breath and turned to Jake. If his tears were rain before, they were a torrent now, one matched only by Jake's own. Here, he could find no words. How does one say good-bye to his own son? If not his son by birth, by ka surely. But was it not ka that now separated them? How cruel was that? And yet...

"If ka is truly a wheel," Roland said, "then we are connected by its spokes. Turn as it may, we will never truly be apart. And perhaps, if the Beam wills, we will be together again. As a very wise boy once told me, there are other worlds than these. I'm only sorry that I will not see the fine man that you will become. My son."

Not trusting himself to say more, he wrapped his arms around Jake, pulling him close to his heart and feeling Jake sob into his chest. He relished that feeling, not for Jake's pain, but for the love he felt.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he pulled away and cast a glance through the door once more. The flutter of yellow had moved on toward a stream at the far side of the meadow. He'd have to run to catch up.

"We are well met, are we not?" he asked his ka-tet, his family.

"We are," Eddie said.

"Yeah," said Jake.

"Sho nuff," drawled Susannah, allowing Detta to come forward just enough to say goodbye.

"Nuff! Olan!" Oy said, gold rimmed eyes looking up at Roland expectantly.

Roland laughed and got down on his hunkers, pulling the billy bumbler to him and scratching Oy behind the ears. "Take care of Jake, boy."

"Ake! Oy!"

He put Oy down, and the bumbler settled into his accustomed place at Jake's heel. Roland stood again and, trusting himself to say nothing more, stepped through the door. He immediately found himself in the meadow, no todash jingles or tingling feeling. Spying the flutter of yellow clear on the other side of the meadow now, he took off at a run, feeling more alive than he had in all the years since Mejis.

As Eddie, Susannah, and Jake watched, the scene in the door shifted. The meadow became Central Park. Sunlight became dusk. Spring became winter, complete with a dusting of snow on the offing. Christmas carolers lined the sidewalks, drinking hot cocoa. People were wearing Christmas caps, and sweaters saying things like "Nozz-A-La" and "I drive a Takuro Spirit."

"Shall we?" Eddie asked nobody in particular. There was no need, for this door was their ka. Hand in hand, and with Oy at heel, they stepped forward into a where and when that we left them to once before. Say true, they did not remember it, _could_ not remember it, for Roland had failed if yourecall, and that where and when had never happened.

No. To say Roland had failed is wrong. If all would be known, he had been destined to save the Tower since Arthur Eld first set eyes upon Excalibur. He would have saved the Tower, no matter if John Farson had never been born or Walter o' Dim had never laid eyes on Gabrielle Deschain. No, his failure had nothing to do with the Tower, but rather what he expected to find there. Roland of Gilead, dinh of the Ka-tet of Nineteen, Champion of the White, was in need of salvation himself and sought it in the Dark Tower, where no man finds salvation. The Tower holds no answers, save those already given. Hind sight is twenty-twenty, do ya kennit?

Another way, the Door at the top of the Tower is _ka_, and the Tower itself is _khef_. Where ka meets the soul. Where the rubber meets the road. The reaction to the action. The yin to the yang. Ka is the destination, and khef is the path to it. There are no answers in the path itself, but in what you find along the way. Eighteen times, Roland sought the Tower, and eighteen times he found it, for he sought the wrong thing. The nineteenth time, he found his answer... the moment he touched the Horn of Eld.

His question: why did the world move on? The answer: because.

But you read on, not to learn of khef and ka, for you already know these things. Roland has taught us well, we of his ka-tet. No, you read on that we may bid long days and pleasant nights to our friends.

As Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy stepped from the Tower to America-side, their memories faded, as once before in that where and when that never happened. And just as well, for this is a new beginning, say true. And not a bad beginning either, if there are such things.

Until the end of their days, they remained ka-tet. And though they remembered nothing of All-world, certain words or images visit them from time to time, as these things tend to do, and they'd have a good laugh when one of them would slip and say "may it do ya" or "thankee-sai." And sure, it was sort of odd that they had a dog with a squiggly tail and seemed to be able to talk, if the mood struck him. But of the Tower? Not a one of them would ever again think of the Dark Tower, although they might perchance dream of a field of roses, and the heavy feel of a big iron in their palm.

That's not to say they never saw Roland again. For he did find the Door and continue on this time, as had they. Come to think of it, they met him in Central Park that very night. Jake bumped right into him while they were taking in the sights.

"Cry your pardon," Jake said.

"Say thankya, and I'll cry yours, may it do ya fine," said a tall man with blue, bombardier eyes.

As their eyes met, they all gave a start. "Have we met somewhere before?" Susannah asked, still straddling Eddie's hip.

"Not that I recall. But then, my memory isn't what it once was," the man said, shrugging off his own sense of deja vu with a little effort. "Name's Roland. Roland Stevenson. I'd introduce you to my wife, Susan, but she's went on to get us some cocoa."

He shook hands around the circle, pausing just a moment longer with the boy. That queer deja vu feeling itched at the back of his mind again, as did the image of a bridge spanning a dark chasm. He swallowed a lump of guilt, though he couldn't say where it came from, or why. "And who are you, son?"

"I'm Jake Toren, Eddie's brother. And this is my dog, Oy."

"Oy! Olan!" Oy barked excitedly.

"What an unusual dog," Roland said with a smile. "And what a fine name, Jake. Always liked it. We're well met, are we not?"

"Indeed we are," Jake said, beaming. "I'll set my watch and warrant on it."


End file.
